Confessions
by fmapreshwab
Summary: On John's last night at the flat, Sherlock tries desperately not to tell him all the things he needs to know.  Holmes/Watson, rated for language.
1. A Quiet Night at Home

A/N: The characters in this story do not belong to me in any other sense than the symbolic, in which they belong to all of us. Also, I totally hijacked them for my own purposes here.

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><p>Holmes sat with Watson at the fireplace in their apartment, trying to pretend to himself that this night was just like any other the two had enjoyed. Watson was reading the paper, and Holmes was going over his latest letters, all entreaties for his help in small matters. One woman's favorite necklace had gone missing; another's husband was cheating on her and hiding it poorly.<p>

More and more often, he was receiving letters requesting his help in petty theft cases and minor disputes. He hated it, but soon, with no one to help him with his investigations, he would be relegated to smaller matters, at least for a time; this was something he was going to have to accept, something to which he would eventually adjust. The more he thought about it, the more upset he became; the more upset he became, the more he ached for his needle. But Watson was only a few feet away, and so he would have to reign in his anger for the time being and deal with it after his friend had gone to sleep. After all, this was not a night for so tired an argument.

Watson peered over the top of his paper at Holmes. "So, are you ready to talk about it?"

Holmes looked up, startled by Watson's abrupt query. "Talk about what, Old Boy?" Holmes smiled dimly and waited for whatever issue had come up to resolve itself. He just wanted to pass the time quietly with his friend by his side. This would be their final night together, but Holmes wanted to believe it was just like any other evening spent in front of the fireplace.

"You've been tense and upset all day, Holmes. I know how you deal with issues. You let them fester just beneath the surface and then take them out on yourself with drugs and boxing matches. Can we just talk about this, just this once?" Holmes noted that Watson hadn't even tried to pretend he didn't know what was bothering him.

He thought for a moment about denying everything and going back to his letters, but he knew that Watson deserved the truth from him, along with so many other things. He took another moment to gather his thoughts, then tried to put them to the right words. So often in matters of such delicacy, the proper words came swiftly, or were not called for. This manner of uncertainty was a state to which Holmes was unaccustomed, nor did he particularly care to familiarize himself. He kept his eyes riveted on his letters as he began to speak. "This is rather difficult for me Watson," he admitted, honest as he was trying to be with his long-time friend and partner in that most noble pursuit. You see, the truth of the matter is…I'm afraid." Holmes looked up to meet Watson's eyes, steeling his resolve to best of his abilities. "I should think you know me well enough to know that I don't make such pronouncements lightly, but I am afraid."

Watson leaned forward in his chair, setting aside the forgotten paper as so much garbage, likely both intrigued and worried for his friend. Holmes could tell he was trying not to show his concern, but his brow furrowed all the same. "Afraid of what, Holmes?"

He took a deep breath, aware he had already taken the proverbial plunge, but still wary of the words he was about to speak. "Afraid of losing someone I've come to care for, perhaps a great deal more than I feel I should. I think I…." He shook his head, shutting down the thought before it grew to words. "I care a great deal for you, Watson. I've come to depend on your presence in my life, to rely on you, and I'm afraid to lose you."

Watson leaned back in his chair and remained silent for a long moment. Holmes saw the shift in his eyes and the set of his jaw. Watson had made a decision, though it didn't seem as though it was a decision with which he was particularly pleased. He continued to look Holmes in the eye as he laughed aloud, but it was a joyless laugh. When he spoke, his scathing tone conveyed a deep frustration and even anger. "Holmes, you aren't afraid of losing me because you care for me, you're afraid of losing your doting assistant, your devoted little errand boy. It's taken me so long to come around to it, but I see through you now. You're afraid to be alone in the flat, with only your self-loathing to keep you company." He stood from his chair and walked to the far side of the room, holding his back to the other man.

Holmes gaped for a moment, truly surprised by his firend's response. "Watson, I'm trying to tell you that I love you. Is that all you have to say to me?"

Watson spun around, scoffing at his proclamation. "I can scarcely believe how truly petty you are. You don't love me. If you did, you would not have waited until I had Mary, until I had some small manner of happiness all to myself, one thing in my life I could realistically call my own without you trying to take at least partial ownership, to say something. You do not love me. You are incapable of it."

"Watson, I just…I wanted you know how I felt before…"

"Before what? Before I finally move past this…I don't even know what this is that we have. Maybe, maybe there was a time when I…. No. Please, if you are any kind of friend, do not insult me. I know you. You don't love me, you just simply cannot stand the thought of sharing me." He looked at Holmes with what approached a fraction of the disgust Holmes often felt for himself.

Holmes felt his pain turn to anger, becoming unmanageable, turning itself outward, even as he opened his mouth to speak. His words sounded harsh in his ears. "I should not have to share you, Watson! You are mine! I—I had you first!" Holmes sprang out of his chair to join Watson across the room.

"You're a spoiled bloody child, Holmes, do you know that?" Watson once again turned his back to Holmes.

"I am no child, Watson!" Holmes could hardly believe the words coming from the mouth of his most trusted, most loyal friend. Perhaps he had fooled himself to believe that after all they had been through, after even those most recent days, things would be any different.

"Then prove it! I dare you! Prove to me that you can act in any way unlike the selfish brat one comes across in the market! Act like an adult for the first time since I've known you and let me go without trying to guilt me into staying." There was something in his voice toward the end of his string of insults that approached pleading in quality.

Holmes turned Watson roughly around to face him, and he saw for the first time the unguarded expression Watson had been trying to hide. His face was drawn, and his eyes were red-rimmed; Watson was crying. Holmes's anger evaporated at the sight of him. He took Watson gently by the front of his jacket and kissed him, lightly at first, but with a growing intensity and passion, the way he had always dreamed it would be to kiss Watson. He backed away after a long moment, expecting to see his firend's face softened, a willingness to have a real discussion. Instead, he saw anger, a heretofore unknown rage in Watson's eyes.

"You…are a real bastard." Watson stormed from the room, and in his anger made a racket such that Holmes was able to follow his progress down the stairs and out the front door, which he slammed with a great force.

Holmes followed him with his eyes through the walls, until he turned to see a mirror hanging on Watson's wall. His own room held no mirrors, all of them having either been destroyed (by his own hand) or removed (by Watson's, tired as he was of cleaning broken glass off his friend's floor). As such, it was not often Holmes had occasion to truly look at himself. While he did, as a matter of course, pass the odd reflective surface and catch enough of a glimpse of himself to straighten his tie when meeting with clients or taking dinner at a restaurant, this was something separate entirely. He was consumed by the need to take the first real look at himself he'd had in months. He was shocked to realize that he did not at all care for what he saw.

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><p>I wrote this something on the order of two years ago. I am attempting now to finish it, to lay it to rest, if you will. Do let me know what you think.<p> 


	2. Some Thinking to Be Done

A/N: If you've come this far, then you should already know: a) that I own none of the characters mentioned herein, and b) that this story was written some two years ago, or at least begun. I wish to put the rest of it out so that it might bring someone other than myself some manner of satisfaction.

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><p>Watson wandered the streets of London for a time, trying to lessen the anger he felt, but all his walking did was make his leg ache. He reached intersections and turned at random, knowing that the only place he wanted to be was the one place he could not go, not until enough time had passed to make it acceptable to him. But he did not have the sort of time that that would take.<p>

'Leave it to Holmes to ruin our last night together,' he thought sourly. But he did not think it in anger, for it would have been foolish of him to expect any less. He was never angry at birds for flying, or at the sun for its brightness, and so he could not be angry with Holmes for his awful behavior. It was simply his way, just as it was Watson's to forgive and overlook his various slights. 'But not now, not this time. He'll never learn.' That last was true enough. Holmes would never learn, never change, and he wouldn't be Holmes if he did. And Watson wouldn't forgive himself if he tried to change that.

In his own way, Watson admitted (begrudgingly, and only to himself), Holmes had been trying to do the right thing, and it had been Watson who had brought the subject up in the first place. What if Holmes had been trying to tell Watson the truth, what if he really did–? Watson collapsed onto the curb of the road and tried to think. What had happened, and he couldn't even admit to himself what it had been, would change, had to change, everything. There was simply no way things could return to the way they had been. Watson sat in the gutter.

Watson had often wondered in the past what Holmes had done before he'd come into the man's life, as it seemed so often he relied on Watson for the most basic of purposes. But it had never occurred to him before to wonder what would happen after he had gone. Until so very recently, it hadn't seemed like an issue. He had deluded himself into believing that things would never change between them, that he and Holmes would continue solving cases and living together as bachelors until…. Well, that was just it—he had never had to find a way to finish that little fantasy before. And now that he had to, he wasn't sure he liked the prospects at all. What was worse, he had given Holmes his unspoken word that he would always be there to shut off the stove and retrieve his revolver, and now, he realized, he felt like he was breaking a promise he'd never given, and it was truly awful.

Watson tried to turn his mind from such depressing and shameful thoughts. He considered their argument for a while, thinking of the terrible things he had called his friend, both aloud and in his head: petty, arrogant, selfish, egotistical, child, bastard, brat, ass, immature. He was a terrible, awful man who needed, at all times, to be distracted from his own overwhelming misery. And, indeed, wasn't that all Watson had ever provided him? A simple distraction, a deviation from his life's routine? It was certainly possible, and Watson did his very damnedest to make himself believe that it was true. He sat in that gutter for well over an hour, trying to build back the rage he had felt not so long ago, or at least stoke the embers of indignation wearily glowing at the hearth of this line of thought.

But there was no good to come of it. Deep within him, in a dark part of himself Watson refused to believe was his heart, he knew that no matter how callous his friend could be, he did, in fact, mean something to the detective. Something special, something important, the same way Holmes had meant something to him. Still did, he corrected his line of thought. Watson doubted very much that he would ever be able to run from that deep vein of respect, pride, and various others that needed not be named, that he would always feel for Holmes. He lifted himself from the gutter, aware fleetingly that he had likely ruined his trousers, and headed for home.

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><p>Watson was not at all sure what he had expected to find upon his return to their flat; perhaps a man sprawled, half-conscious, across the couch in the sitting room, having finally succumb to his need for the poison in which so often was found a shelter from his botched reality; or, perhaps what he had thought to find was an angry drunk, staring into the fire, a brandy in his hand, waiting for a certain young doctor's return (for the sole purpose of finishing their argument, of course). Some small piece of him had even, he supposed, expected to find all of his belongings tossed out into the street and the door's locks so swiftly altered. Whatever it was Watson had expected, the note he found on the small table near the main door caught him completely by surprise.<p>

It read simply:

_Watson- I'm quite sorry I upset you. In my quest to relieve myself of a burden I have carried these many months, I clearly gave you cause to feel a personal slight, and perhaps sullied that great occasion upon which you find yourself so ready and willing to embark. If you have, in fact, found this note, I trust you have surmised by this point that I have gone out. I felt I needed to clear my head, as I suppose you must understand, given the circumstances of the preceding moments, wherein you yourself made quite the exit. In any case, I should be very much surprised if I do not find myself back by the dawn. There are things I believe you and I should discuss, matters of which I feel I should not need to remind you at this moment, but if I find, on my return, that you have left, then I am not at all sure I would have slightest cause to blame you. –Holmes_

Watson considered his options, completely unaware that a small, wistful smile played now across his lips. Holmes had been obliging enough to offer him a way out. He said himself that he wouldn't be upset, or indeed even surprised, if Watson were to gather his things and be gone by morning. He could leave without having to face the issues before him. But that would mean the end. Of everything. If he walked away now, he would be walking away forever. Or he could stay, have a long, loud, uncomfortable conversation with Holmes, likely wake Mrs. Hudson in the process, and then what would they do? How could either possibly explain anything she was like to hear? And how would this affect his life with Mary, if she should see Mrs. Hudson on her way up the steps, or even if she didn't, what would confronting Holmes about…everything do to his feelings and future with Mary?

Watson glanced out the window and into the dark of another London night. It seemed he would have some time before the dawn, at least, to think it out.

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><p>At least one more chapter in it, I think. Reviews appreciated.<p> 


	3. Why Would We Pretend?

A/N: I don't own anything, and I will readily admit that I'm using two of my very favorite gentlemen to my own purposes here. But before we begin, I'd like to share a personal first. I've been posting on this site for nearly six years, and never once received an angry review before now, before this story. Let me say that while I respect the views of all my reviewers, I would like to point out that the subtext between Holmes and Watson has been present since day one. I encourage any of those who doubt me to read the books, view the films (and not just the Guy Ritchie incarnation, but everything stretching back to the iconic Nigel Rathborne) and please accept that, at the end of the day, this is just one person's interpretation. Now, with that out of the way, on with the show.

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><p>Watson sat in his favorite armchair, enjoying the fire he had built and watching the sky outside begin to grey with the coming dawn. He heard the door slip open and closed behind him, but made no move to turn. He would wait for Holmes to come to him.<p>

With the movement at the corner of his eye, Watson heard a familiar voice in the back of his mind. _You have my methods_, it whispered. _Use them._

The first clue was the ascot. It was folded differently now than the last time Watson had seen him, seeming to indicate that it had been removed. Holmes's shirt, waistcoat and jacket were in pristine condition, but his trousers had been made dusty, dirty at some point in the evening. His hair, though no longer wet, was weighted down by what could only be dried sweat. Most obvious of all, of course, were the spot of blood he had missed in the right corner of his mouth and the bruise forming below his left eye. Holmes had been to another match.

"How'd you do, then?" Watson asked, trying to keep his voice hollow with disinterest.

Holmes lifted an eyebrow, flashing a grin just wide enough to let Watson know that he had failed. He set a stack of notes down on the table in front of the chair and turned his back. "Total incapacitation in four rounds," Holmes informed him, falling onto the couch.

Watson was all too aware that Holmes's matches never passed the third round. And then there was the bruising. "Must've been a lucky chap to get so many hits on a fighter as experienced as yourself," he said, fishing for the explanation he wasn't sure he could get.

Holmes looked up at the ceiling, eyes drooping almost closed. "I suppose I was a bit…distracted."

Watson looked over from the corner of his eye and noticed a thin trail of blood dripping down the detective's face. He hadn't missed a spot while cleaning himself up, he was still bleeding. "Grab my bag and come here before you ruin the couch," Watson told him, trying to keep his voice gruff.

Holmes gave an exaggerated sigh as he rose from his place on the couch. "Whatever you say, mother hen," he said, grinning again despite his put upon tone. "You know, Watson, while your concern for my upholstery is most touching—"

"Our upholstery," Watson interrupted.

"Our?" Holmes turned where he stood, halfway across the room, to lock his eyes with Watson's. Grinning, he crossed the room to retrieve Watson's medical bag, then came to sit dutifully before the doctor, watching him thread an alarmingly large needle.

When the needle had finally met with Watson's approval, he set his attention once more upon his most frequent patient. "Tilt you head back and open your mouth."

Holmes looked down for a moment without complying. "Before we begin, doctor," he started in an uncharacteristically small voice, "might I inquire as to the circumstances which have led you to be present upon my return? I must admit, though the occurrence is rare, you have surprised me." Without looking Watson in the eye, Holmes tilted his head back and opened his mouth as instructed.

"I daresay I surprised myself," Watson told him as he set to his work. He tried to ignore the small spasms of the muscles below Holmes's eye, the subtle winces which communicated the pain his work was causing the man. But better a small pain now than to let the wound fester. He turned his mind once more to the conversation, finding it easier to talk now that he had a task about which to set himself. "I—I sent Mary a wire. I told her our new landlord had found some trouble with the flat, that we wouldn't be able to move in as planned. I told her it could be some time before we were able. I lied to her, Holmes. I lied to the woman I plan to marry. Why—why would I do that?"

Holmes, unable though he was to speak with Watson's hand in his mouth, made the valiant attempt. All that came was nonsense, and Watson spoke over the sounds. "I believe it's you, Holmes, you and this madness you've drawn me into. I try to stop it, try to break the cycle, but you always find some way to bring me along, and then I'm simply swept up in it. I get drawn in to your cases and your insanity, and I bloody love every minute of it. I've been walking around for months now, wondering what it is you will do without me, how you will cope with such an awesome loss, and never once did I ask myself what I will do without you. And that is the true question, isn't it? You can return to the life you had before, I'm certain of it. But…every time I try to imagine a life beyond…this place, beyond you, it is pale and hollow and dull." His work finished, he clipped the thread which now formed the stitches in Holmes's inner lip and tied off the end.

The detective looked up, licking his injured lip experimentally. "What are you saying, doctor?"

Watson sighed, half in frustration, half in resignation to the admission he knew he would soon make. "I'm saying you've changed me, Holmes. As much as I liked the man I once was, as much as I've tried to be him once more these past months, as easy as it would be still to be that man, that simple gentleman with such simple aims, I can no longer pretend to be. I am no longer a man for whom a small practice and designs for a wife are enough. I can no longer pretend that I am happy with the direction my life has taken. And, much as it frightens me, I fear I can no longer pretend that I don't love you."

Holmes was standing now and, taking Watson by the hand, he pulled the man up out of his chair. "Dear Watson, I can't imagine what ever possessed you to start."

The stitches in Holmes's mouth were rough against Watson's tongue, and he could still taste the copper of the other man's blood, but the kiss was sweet and simple, an admission of things hidden from sight far too long.

"Sherlock," Watson whispered, holding his lips a mere centimeter from Holmes's ear, his voice thick and rough. "Are there any other wounds I should tend to, before we…?" He let the thought drift off, promising of the things to come.

Watson could feel Holmes smiling into the hollow between his chin and his throat. "They can wait, John," he muttered, pushing Watson back toward his own bedroom.

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><p>And that is, finally, the end of that. Let me know what you thought.<p> 


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